Motivation

What is motivation ?

Motivation is the inner energy that drives us to achieve the non-achievable. Its the adrenalin force within us that helps us to accomplish things.

Why we need motivation ?

Motivation is the need of the hour in any of its forms to keep us in the competetive edge.To reach our goals , we need consistent motivation and lots of perseverance. But it is not so easy as said .

How does it works ?

There are types of motivation like positive and negetive motivation. When the boss in the company forces his team members to work on late nights to meet the deadlines , we term this as negetive motivation.

The best motivation, is a way of really wanting to do something, to get excited about it, to be passionate about it.

For any task to achieve , let us start with the right motivation for better chance of succeeding in it.

Few Ways to get the right Motivation :

Start with small goals: When we try to achieve a goal, we can start in a small way. For example if my goal is to reduce my weight by 5 kgs , we can slowly change our diet and the workouts rather doing intensive workouts everyday and losing out interest. We can jog for 15 minutes for the first week, and then we can increase our speed gradually every week as it progresses. It’s important to keep toddler steps before making big steps towards your goal.

One goal at a time: Always focusing on one goal at a time is more effective than having many and loosing focus on all. The goal with the highest priority has to be taken first and worked upon. By this all the energy and motivation is intense and spent only on the current goal.

Examine your motivation: We need to know the reasons for our actions. If the reasons are the loved ones, then it’s much stronger than the Self-Interest. We need to be extremely passionate and excited about it.

Commit Publicly: Committing publicly to your near and dear ones about your goals will keep you accountable to update them with the progress.

Keep it Visible: Take print outs of your goals in BIG WORDs and post them in your room or other place where you can see them frequently. By this way you will be reminded constantly and keeps you aware.

Few ways to maintain our motivation when we are struggling.

Hold yourself back. When you feel that you have so much energy at the beginning of pursuing your goal/program, and want to go all out — it is advisable to HOLD BACK. Don’t let yourself do everything you want to do. Plan out a course of action where you slowly increase over time. For example, if I want to run, I might think I can run 3 miles at first. But instead of doing that, I start by only running a mile. After that I’ll let myself do 1.5 miles. I keep that energy and harness it, so that I can ride it even further.

Just start. There are some days when you don’t feel like heading out the door for a run, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do that day for your goal. Well, instead of thinking about how hard it is, and how long it will take, tell yourself that you just have to start. Once you start, it all flows naturally.

Stay accountable. If you committed yourself publicly in person or by other means then stay accountable to that group of people. Commit to report back to them frequently and stick to it! That accountability will help you to want to do well, because you don’t want to report that you’ve failed.

Remove negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. It’s important to start monitoring your thoughts, and to recognize negative self-talk. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try removing those negative thoughts and then replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. It sounds hard, but it works really.

Read more about your goals and Read inspiring stories. When you lose motivation, it is good to just read a book or a magazine about your goal. It inspires and rejuvenates. Reading helps motivate and focus you on whatever you’re reading about. You can try reading inspirational stories of people who have achieved amazing things.

Find like-minded friends. Staying motivated on your own is tough. But if you find someone with similar goals (running, dieting, finances, etc.), see if they’d like to partner with you. You both don’t need to have the same goals — as long as you are both pushing and encouraging each other to succeed.

Chart your progress and Reward yourself often. This can be as simple as marking an X on your calendar. But you can look back on your progress and see how far you’ve come, and it can help you to keep going. Strive to keep the chart progressing positively. For every little step along the way, celebrate your success, and give yourself a reward.

Never skip two days in a row. This rule takes into account our natural tendency to miss days now and then. We are not so perfect. When missed one day … now laziness creeps on the second day … tell yourself NO! You will not miss two days in a row which is detrimental to reach our goal.

Use visualization. Visualize your successful outcome in great detail. Close your eyes, and think about exactly how your successful outcome will look, will feel, will smell, taste and sound like. Now do this every day for few minutes. This is the only way to keep that motivation going over a long period of time.

“Never, never, never, never give up.” – Winston Churchill

( Credit : this article is based on the post by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits)